


Live and Die by the Blade

by Emotionally Compromised Robots (CDRomelle)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, I came out here to have a good time and guess what I sure am, Joe is a figure skater, M/M, Multi, Nicky is a hockey player, background book of nile, battle of the blades AU, nicky feral garbage cat agenda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27613307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CDRomelle/pseuds/Emotionally%20Compromised%20Robots
Summary: Joe is a charming and talented figure skater. Nicky is a hockey player known for starting fights on the ice. They're paired up for Battle of the Blades, a reality competition like Dancing with the Stars but for figure skaters and hockey skaters. They're a terrible match... or are they?Based on an AU prompt by harrynightingales.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 17
Kudos: 82





	Live and Die by the Blade

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not Canadian, I know very little about hockey and even less about figure skating, but wow has this been a blast to write XD 
> 
> Based on the AU promt by harrynightingales.

"Joe! We got our Battle of the Blades partners!" 

Joe almost fell on his face in the middle of a double axel. 

"Joe!" called Nile again. She off the ice, leaning over the boards, waving the phone clutched in her hand. Joe got his skates back under him and zoomed over to her, pulling a perfect stop just before he hit the boards. Nile rolled her eyes at his oh-did-I-just-do-something-cool expression.

"Who'd we get?" he asked.

Nile scrolled back up on her phone. "I don't know any of these players... I got paired with someone called Sebastien le Livre?"

"Oh yeah I know that name. He plays for the Montreal Canadiens, I think he's Quebecois? I thought he was suspended from the league though."

Nile looked up apprehensively. "Why?"

"Doping, I think." 

Nile rolled her eyes. "Great." 

"What about me?"

Scroll, scroll. 

"Um... someone named Nicky di Genova." 

Joe's face went blank. Then he leaned in close, eyes wide. "No." 

Nile raised her eyebrows. "Come on, he can't be worse than a drugged-up French-Canadian." 

"Give me your phone." 

"You are being so dramatic."

"Nile." 

"Even more dramatic than usual." 

"Nile, please."

She handed her phone over with a put-upon sigh. 

Joe typed rapidly for a moment, then held the phone up for Nile to see. He’d opened a YouTube video of a hockey game, red jerseys versus green. Green had the puck. "And Rucka passes to Prince-Bythewood," said the commentator, "annnnnd P.B. headed directly to—OOOH!"

A red-team player just rocketed out of nowhere and collided with the player with the puck. Another green-team player swung back to help their downed teammate; the wrecking-ball red-team player dropped his stick and punched him. 

"There he goes, folks!" crowed the commentator as the game dissolved into an all-out brawl, "The feral garbage cat strikes again!" 

Joe stopped the clip and put down the phone. Nile met his desperate gaze. 

"'Feral garbage cat'?" she repeated. 

Joe's eyes were liquid with anguish. "That's his  _ nickname _ ." 

Nile took back her phone, then gripped Joe's arm. "This is going to be a long competition." 

\-----

Nile had told Joe, more than once, that he had a particular way of walking when he was nervous. “It’s not walking,” she had told him with a critical frown; “it’s more like a saunter.” 

“It projects confidence,” Joe had said. 

“It looks kind of douchey,” Nile had responded. 

Anyway, Joe was  _ not  _ sauntering into the ice rink where he was supposed to meet Nicky “Feral Garbage Cat” di Genova. It’s just that wearing skates while walking on the rink’s rubber-mat flooring could make you walk a little funny, that was all. 

The ice was empty but for one person, a man batting a puck back and forth with a well-worn stick and wearing hockey skates, baggy cargo pants and a faded hoodless sweatshirt. Joe’s “Battle of the Blades” partner must have arrived early.

Joe had expected Nicky “Garbage Cat” di Genova to look smaller without his hockey pads on. He was surprised, then, to see that di Genova was nearly of a height with himself, with rangy features and surprisingly broad shoulders. 

_ And a figure-skater ass _ , a voice in the back of Joe’s brain noted. He silenced that voice as aggressively as possible. 

Di Genova was good, Joe had to admit. A bit of an aggressive skater, and absolutely gouging the ice with his blades a little more than was necessary, but that was par for the course with hockey players. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe there was more to Nicky di Genova than just a brawler. 

There was a second stick leaning against the bench by the ice. Joe picked it up and hopped onto the ice with a grin. Maybe this would actually be fun. 

Di Genova didn’t notice Joe until he was right behind him, Joe’s stick already nudging the puck. That’s when di Genova’s head snapped up, and Joe caught just a glimpse of luridly green eyes before an enormous shoulder slammed into his chest and he went flying. 

Only decades of practice falling on ice prevented Joe from breaking something on the way down. As it was he landed hard on his hip and barely managed to avoid smacking his head. 

“What the fuck!” he gasped; the wind had been knocked out of him. Joe got his feet back under him quickly as possible, half expecting di Genova to attack him again, but when he stood the other man was just… 

Standing there. Staring at him with his weird unblinking eyes that seemed almost sunken in his head, surrounded as they were by the deepest, darkest eye bags Joe had ever seen. 

For some reason this only annoyed Joe more. “Seriously?” 

“Yusuf al-Kaysani?” di Genova said finally. 

“Unfortunately,” said Joe. 

“You’re bleeding.”

Joe touched his nose, then his lip. Sure enough, his fingers came away wet. He must have bitten his lip during his fall. 

“Great,” said Joe. 

Di Genova pushed off toward Joe and extended a hand. “I’m Nicky.” 

Joe didn’t take it. “Yeah, I know who you are. You do know there’s no fighting in figure skating, right?”

Di Genova dropped his hand. “Okay.” 

Joe scrubbed a hand through his beard. “Okay. Great. Just great.” He looked down. “Tell me you have skates?”

Nicky raised his eyebrows—good God, had he blinked once since knocking Joe over?—and looked pointedly down at his hockey skates. 

“Figure skates,” Joe clarified. 

“They told me I could use my own skates.”

“Who said that? The same person who told you a shoulder check was a legal figure skating move?”

“A man on my team.” 

“Well either he was lying or he’s had one too many concussions,” Joe said. 

Nicky was frowning now. Joe almost felt bad, except this guy  _ had  _ hit him pretty hard, had not apologized, and—almost worse than that—he  _ still  _ hadn't blinked. 

This was going to be an excruciating season. And Joe had previously competed in Battle for the Blades with Andy Black, a terrifying power forward from the WNHL, and they had come in second and were now good friends, so Joe felt more than qualified to speak on the matter. 

By the time Nicky had gotten off the ice, hobbled to the front desk to ask the attendant to open the rental skates for him and get him a pair of figure skates, gotten them on and gotten back on the ice, Joe’s lip had swollen up like a golf ball and his shirt had two distinct red spots where his blood had dribbled onto it. 

So if Nicky tripped on his figure skates’ toe pick the second he hit the ice and fell flat on his face, well, could anyone blame Joe for laughing? 

Nicky got up, his face blank, and the two circled each other on the ice. 

“So,” said Joe. “How are we going to do this?”

“I tried, Nile, I really did,” Joe told her later that night as the two sat on the spare bed in Joe’s hotel room, commiserating over mugs of mint tea. “I said, ‘do you have a song in mind for the routine?’ He shook his head. ‘Do you know what style of song you’d like?’ Shook his head. ‘Okay, do you mind if I pick, then?’ Shook his head. ‘Do you even want to be here?’” Joe shook his head, gesturing incredulously. 

“Did he really say that?”

“Nile, he barely said two words the entire time. But it couldn’t have been more obvious.”

Nile clicked her tongue sympathetically. “What song did you pick?”

Joe’s lip twitched. “Bad Blood.”

“The Taylor Swift song?”

“Featuring Kendrick Lamar, come on.”’

Nile nudged him. “You’re terrible.” 

“I needed to express myself,” Joe grumbled. 

Over the course of what felt like the longest week of Joe’s life, he developed a choreography for them that played out like a sort of mock-combat: more the two of them pushing off each other than actually touching, and not a single lift. 

It turned out to be an inspired decision: Every time Joe touched Nicky, he flinched, and everytime Nicky touched Joe, he scowled. 

Joe could almost take it personally, if he wasn’t so convinced that Nicky di Genova was the most sullen, awkward, and uncharismatic person who had ever lived. 

(“What do you mean ‘almost,’” said Nile, “you take everything personally.”

(“I think he was sent to test me,” Joe said, “I’m serious, Nile, stop laughing—”)

The day before the first round of Battle of the Blades was to tape, Joe was tired, he was frustrated, his lip was still swollen, but most of all, he just had to know—

“Why do you even want to do this?” he asked. Nicky had just wiped out, yet again, after tripping on his toe pick, and Joe stood crouched over him—not too close, just in case—but close enough to not be completely rude. 

“For the charity,” said Nicky through clenched teeth as he pushed himself to his feet. The pair that wins Battle of the Blades won a large donation to the charity of their choice. But did Nicky di Genova really think he and Joe could win this? 

“What charity?” said Joe, skating backwards to give Nicky room. “The di Genova Nose Reduction Foundation?”

As soon as he said it he regretted it. Just a little. It had sounded funnier in his head. But Nicky only looked up from where he was hunched over, hands on his knees, and blinked at him with the same weird calm as ever. 

“You said there is no fighting in figure skating, yes?” he said. 

“Yeah,” said Joe. 

“A punch results in, not just a penalty, but a disqualification. Therefore it is not done.” 

“Yeah…?”

“Good.” Nicky nodded. “This sport is a good fit for you.” 

Joe huffed an incredulous laugh. “Are you saying I can’t take a punch?”

“I don’t know,” said Nicky. “Can you?”

“Some people solve problems with their words, not their fists.” 

“Ah, I see. Calling my nose big, that is you solving our problems with words.” 

Joe spread his arms. “So you  _ can  _ have a conversation, so long as it’s about threatening to punch me.” 

“I am confused. Maybe it is my English. Do I threaten to punch you, or do I say you cannot take a punch?”

“Ha!” said Joe. He pointed at Nicky as he glided away. “You… you’re funny.” 

\-----

Their first show was a disaster. 

Not thirty seconds in, Nicky tripped on his toe pick  _ yet again _ and went flying. Joe was certain he’d been unable to keep the anger from his face, but hey, at least that went with the tone of the song, right? He’d picked “Bad Blood” so they wouldn’t have to pretend to like each other. It almost,  _ almost  _ looked like they’d planned it. 

That is, until right at the end of the routine when Joe did a Bielmann spin, skating on one leg with the other extended straight behind him, and the blade caught an unsuspecting Nicky right in the face. 

Joe heard the crowd gasp before he saw Nicky’s face. It was a gash just above his hairline, shallow but bloody. 

“Oh shit—” Joe skidded to a stop; he wasn’t a  _ monster _ —and Nicky, bullishly continuing with the routine and not expecting him to be there, ran smack into him. For the second time in a week Joe cursed Nicky di Genova’s shoulders as he hit the ice. 

When finally,  _ finally  _ the routine was over and they were standing side-by-side in the blinding lights, chests heaving and skin dripping with sweat, Joe’s lip had split open again and one side of Nicky’s face was covered in a sheen of red. Drops of their blood speckled the ice, garish against the white. 

The crowd  _ roared.  _

Nile was waiting for him when he finally got off the ice, standing with Sebastien le Livre as they waited to go on next. She gripped his arm, opened her mouth, then closed it again, clearly at a loss for words.

“Pretty good,” said le Livre. “The blood, it’s a nice touch.” He pointed at his own face. “Very on theme.” 

“Break a leg, Book,” said Joe. 

“Do you say that in figure skating?”

“No.” 

Le Livre snorted. 

Joe stayed on the sidelines to watch Nile’s routine (she had chosen “Sk8er Boi” by Avril Lavigne) but once she was done he went backstage to ice his face and steel himself for his inevitable disqualification. 

In the end, he and Nicky only made it to the next round because another pair was somehow even worse. Joe wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

The final coup de grace came the next morning at the hotel, when Nile intercepted him on his way to the continental breakfast buffet and shoved her phone in his face. 

“Read this!”

He was tired and sore and he hadn’t had any caffeine yet, but it was Nile, so he indulged her and immediately wished he hadn’t. It was a news headline that read: HOT-BLOODED: SPARKS FLY DURING BUMPY FIRST ROUND WITH DI GENOVA AND AL-KAYSANI. 

Joe threw back his head and laughed, then immediately realized he was laughing too loud. “What the hell is this?” he asked as he beelined for the coffee station, knowing Nile would follow him. 

“Your routine blew up, everyone’s talking about it. The whole internet is talking about whether you two really hate each other or if you’re secretly fucking.” 

“Good lord, Nile.” 

“It’s true! Look at the comments. ‘That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.’ ‘Sex tape when?’ ‘I want to lick the blood off of both their faces—’”

“Please stop—”

“Joe. There’s already ten fanfics about you.  _ Ten. _ ” 

Joe put down his unused coffee cup and turned around. 

“Where are you going?” Nile called after him. 

He raised a hand, not turning around as he left the dining room. “Back to sleep. Maybe this time I’ll wake up for real and this will all be a dream.” 

**Author's Note:**

> If this wasn't already painfully obvious, I have NO idea what I'm doing, so PLEASE send me suggestions for songs you'd like them to dance to (Joe/Nicky or Booker/Nile), hockey or figure skating moves you want them to do or name-drop, tropes you want to see, anything! 
> 
> Thanks to harrynightingales for the prompt and emjee for the beta read. I love the Old Guard fandom!


End file.
